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Ooyala lands ESPN and its 1 billion+ video streams as a customer

Online video platform Ooyala today announced it has landed sports network ESPN.com as a customer.

Click here to watch a video about ESPN and Ooyala.

Ooyala began integrating its technology into the site, which streams 1 billion videos a month, several weeks ago and is now powering all of the videos on ESPN.com.

Ooyala President and CEO Jay Fulcher said the OVP was chosen because it offered ESPN the best opportunity to focus on the experience of their viewers.

"First and foremost, our video technology helps ESPN deliver the best possible fan experience on the web. Ooyala-powered videos load incredibly fast and have exceptional playback quality," wrote Fulcher in a blog post. "As a result ESPN can engage more fans and keep them watching longer."

Fulcher said ESPN was looking for a platform that would help them deliver high-quality video at scale and streamline the management of their videos and related data.

ESPN, like a number of large content owners, had been using its own in-house platform, in its case, one based on technology developed by parent Disney. The network was at a point, VP of Technology and Product Development Jason Guenther told TechCrunch, that it wanted to focus more on the user experience. Ooyala allowed it to do that.

The Ooyala player can deliver HD at up to 2.8 Mbps and, although it's Flash-based, video can be viewed on iOS devices like Apple's iPad in HTML5.